


Of bottles and forgetting

by amuk



Category: Darker Than Black
Genre: Angst, Community: 31_days, Drunkenness, F/M, Implied Relationships, Loneliness, Loss, Lost Love, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-23
Updated: 2013-01-23
Packaged: 2017-11-26 13:18:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/650905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amuk/pseuds/amuk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Contractors do dream, in black-and-white like their morals, in scenes that run forward and backward at the same time. He chases her, across burning rubble and shooting fires, and finds that this is as close to a lover's embrace as he can get</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of bottles and forgetting

**Author's Note:**

> Day/Theme: 19 Oct // hide-and-seek among the tea flowers

She didn't have any scent associated with her. Instead she was clean, rainwater and clearing skies, her element her guardian. Yin would sit in moon flowers and tea roses and come out with barely a whiff of the jasmine lingering over the garden.

  
(It is odd how he noticed that when he didn't have the time, when he didn't have any reason to do so.  
  
It is expected he only realizes this after she disappears.)  
  
He half wishes she had a scent, something he can find and carry around with him. It would make remembering easier.  
  
(As though he doesn't see each strand of hair, each shade of her eye, each shift of her dress when he closes his eyes.)

  
-x-  
 

He doesn't remember when he takes up drinking—the bottle a constant ally and friend now—but each sip tastes like his first. He drowns them down, a buoy in the storm, and can't remember a time when the bottle was not in his hand. The cool glass resembles the snow and ice of his new home and he freezes in order to match.  
  
It's always the same brand he buys, the hardest liquor he can find, but that doesn't help much. Even when he sits in a sea of bottles, it's not enough for him to sink into the sea of forgetfulness.  
  
His senses are just as awake as ever and they remind him of too much.

  
-x-

  
Sometimes, when they traveled, she would linger in the forests and woods. Not so long that he would have realized had he not paid attention--and did he, really, anymore than he should have?   
  
The answer is yes and no and he can only understand that now, the little hints and clues that he sometimes sees when he looks at other people and hears their responses.  
  
He can only find her in everyone but himself.  
  
She liked plants; that much he can tell. She liked plants and water and the last rays of sunlight. She'd feel for them and brush them with a painter's hands, memorizing them constantly. When he was half-asleep, leaning on her with the casual ease of familiarity, she'd run rivers and streams through his hair, a path to nowhere and everywhere.  
  
The wind is the only thing that blows through it now, longer and wilder, and if he doesn't look he can still feel her touch.  
 

-x-  
 

A quick glimpse in the mirror (a cracked pan full of rainwater) tells him what he already knows. There are crowfeet surrounding his eyes, his hair untamed and burly, a short stubble on his chin. He looks like a mess, a disaster of time and loss, and he thinks Yin would not recognize the man he has become.  
  
Then again, she always had a way of seeing things that he couldn't, that no one should have, and where her eyes failed her, her fingers didn't.  
  
He kicks aside the pan anyways, the image fading in ripples, and continues down his self-paved path of destruction.  
  
There is no Yin here.

  
-x-

At night he plays hide-and-seek with her in his dreams (contractors do dream, in black-and-white like their morals, in shades of grey and scenes that run forward and backward at the same time).  
  
He chases her across crumbling rubble and shooting fires, the scent of death that oddly hangs on her this time, and finds that this is as close to a lover's embrace as he has gotten in a long time.


End file.
